The invention concerns a vacuum cleaner having a housing with a bottom portion and wheels for rolling the vacuum cleaner across the floor. A handle rod with a handle is provided for guiding and pushing the vacuum cleaner across the floor. The handle rod is connected to the housing. A suction blower with a drive motor is positioned in the housing. The housing comprises a brush roller chamber in which a rotatably driven brush roller with brush elements is positioned. The housing has a suction slot through which the brush elements of the brush roller extend. The housing further comprises a receiving chamber positioned between the brush roller chamber and the suction blower. A removable dirt collecting container is received in the receiving chamber. The dirt collecting container has sidewalls a first one of which faces the brush roller chamber. The first sidewall has an inlet slot extending substantially over the length of the brush roller chamber for allowing passage of a suction air stream entering the brush roller chamber through the suction slot into the dirt collecting container.
A vacuum cleaner of this kind, known from U.S. Pat. No. 1,829,582, has a dirt collecting container which can be inserted in a receiving chamber to retain coarse and fine particles of dirt. One sidewall has an inlet slot for a stream of suction air entering the brush chamber through the suction slot. The suction air stream carries the particles of dirt released by the brush roller into the dirt collecting container. The latter has a filter mat on the air outflow side through which the suction air stream flows and by which the particles of dirt are filtered out. Since the inlet slot is located in the dirt-collecting container above the brush roller, the suction air stream must lift the dirt particles correspondingly. The heavier dirt particles require a stronger suction air stream in order to perform the necessary lifting work. A stronger suction air stream, however, requires a correspondingly strong drive motor, which is very heavy and will impair the handiness of the vacuum cleaner.
It is an object of the present invention to develop a vacuum cleaner of the aforementioned kind in such a manner that, even with a moderate drive output, heavy dirt particles can be conveyed with certainty into the dirt collecting container and are retained safely in the dirt collecting container.